I'm Brian Kinney, FFS!

Oh, I'm super excited she's going!! It was sad for Jessica, though, cause she's been a fan FOREVER.

It's only an hour from my place.

cherrypie12345

Hal was great!

Giotto

that's not too far and yupp.. that sucks if you can't go being a fan

SojournHeart11

Oh, my mistake. Nonetheless, I'm sure this is really exciting for you.

I'm Brian Kinney, FFS!

I was FREAKING OUT yesterday. I haven't felt that overwhelming "OMG I've got a fun thing coming up!!!" feeling since I was a teen probably going to a LH concert. It was kinda nice to have it back, but also a little too much.

I'm Brian Kinney, FFS!

EDIT: And OMG, Hal just INSTANTLY responded to my Tweet!!!!



Full recap to come, but I'm just SO in love with this photo.

daggerrose

Ahhhh so excited for you!!

SojournHeart11

I'm loving the homage to Michael's creation of Rage in the t-shirt.

I'm Brian Kinney, FFS!

Thanks, guys. And Denise, I knew that was the perfect shirt that I HAD to wear to see him.

So, here's my long ass recap. It's written in excited fangirl speak, so be warned. Also, I'm not going to bother going through to edit the parts that I know FF will censor. (shrug) Enjoy!

Hal Sparks Recap!!!
Arlington Drafthouse
3/2/19

Where do I begin? Well, Amy got to my house a few minutes after 4:30, and we left right away. The drive was fun, we got to catch up (I hadn't seen her since we went to the Ninja Sex Party concert together back in October, other than some brief interactions when I went in for acupuncture). Listened to NSP on the way and shared plenty of laughs, as usual, also recounted some memories from the concert we'd gone to which was cool. Also plenty of Game Grumps references happened, of course. It'd been too long since we'd hung out. Traffic was pretty non-existent on a Saturday evening, which was great. I think it took less than an hour to get there, but then parking was a little tricky. The Arlington Drafthouse (ADH) said they had a private lot behind the building somewhere, but we couldn't find it, and the street parking was metered and timed. We ended up just going for the garage right across the street at some place called the Avalon that I'd remembered the website mentioning, and that was super easy. Much less sketchy and hard to navigate than the garage we'd had to use in Silver Spring for the NSP show. I felt good about leaving my car there, too.

I snapped a couple of pics of the ADH from across the street before we went in. It was super cool inside, there were murals painted on the walls right inside the doors. It was probably about 5:40 when we went inside, and doors were supposed to open at 6. To our surprise there were only 3 people in line already. I was expecting a lot more to have been there by that time, but I guess it wasn't the same as a concert, ha. A couple of minutes later they started checking tickets and IDs, then we had to line up and wait to be let in. The excitement was building and it seemed to take forever, even though it was only like 15 minutes. But eventually they let us in. The actual theater was super cool! I didn't get any photos because there were strict "NO PHOTOGRAPHY" signs all over the place, and I was even nervous when Amy and I took a couple of selfies. I discreetly took a pic of Hal's photo projected up on the wall, and the waiter came over to greet us like a second later, of course, and I had this second of fear, like, "I wasn't doing anything wrong!!" Haha. I was nervous at this point, nervous excited. I'd been freaking out about the show for the past 2-3 days and now we were actually there. The ADH kind of reminded me of the Weinberg Center in Frederick, but quite a bit smaller. I told Amy the place was "simultaneously bigger and smaller than I was expecting" haha. Apparently it sat 275 people, but it didn't really look like it.

Anyway, we got right up front, in the exact placement I had visualized (!!) — first row, off to the left a little bit. I was squealing inside about that. Poor Amy was starving and the waiter was taking freakin' FOREVER to take our order, after having gotten our drinks already (I got "unsweet tea" as a nod to one of Hal's famous bits, and I'd even told him on Twitter that I'd made sure the ADH had it on their menu a few days back, and he liked it ). We were supposed to sit these "flags" upright when we wanted the server to come by, and we'd done that and after a while we were joking about sitting there and holding it up. At one point Amy told me there WAS a guy in the crowd doing that, haha. Finally our waiter was walking past and I said, "Excuse me!" and he was like, "Oh, sorry!" Like, umm hello, dude, you've got one hangry chick and one super nervous/giddy fangirl here, bring us some dang food! Haha. But eventually we got to eat. And it was delicioussss. Even though Amy was waiting way longer for some reason and I felt guilty because she was the one starving. Sad.

The place ended up being packed. It was great because the seat to my right was empty, so I didn't have to deal with any annoying people around me, haha. The first opener was pretty funny, he was a pretty deadpan dude. He kept looking at me, which made me feel pressured to laugh at his jokes, ha. He did make me laugh genuinely a bit, though. The next opener was a very ...interesting chick. She had a bit about smoking while teaching yoga though, which made me laugh, as a former yoga instructor who's somewhat bitter. One part was really awkward though, when she was talking about young girls and their friends when it comes to dating, and then she was scanning the crowd for 20-somethings and looked right at me. I was trying to point to Amy, cause I'm legit NOT in my 20s anymore! (Plus I don't date dudes, so it would've been so awkward if she'd picked on me for her bit) Anyway, poor Amy had to be her guinea pig for that bit. Awkward. It was okay, though. I wished the dude before her had a longer set and hers was shorter, cause he was funnier, I thought. But, finally... the moment of truth...

They introduced Hal Sparks and I freaked out. I swear to God, when he ran out, he made eye contact with me immediately and I felt like there was some kind of knowing look there, like "SHE'S Zelda!" haha, could've just totally been me imagining it, though. BUT for real, when he said, "HELL-OOOOO!" he WAS looking right at me, and I said, "Helloooo!" back and it was a really cool opening moment.

The show was hilarious. I noticed a few minutes in, how badly my cheeks were hurting from laughing! Ha. Hal was SUPER animated, and his mannerisms and expressions were just as funny as his jokes. The crowd was responding well, too, which made me happy. I totally missed my cue when he said, "I don't drink", and only one person in the audience cheered and Hal commented on that, and I was like "****! I didn't know I was supposed to cheer!" since I don't drink either and totally support him in that, lol. Oh wellll. He made TONS of eye contact, which was both awesome and a little nerve-wracking at times, when I was like, "Is he judging me cause I'm not laughing at this exact second?" lol.

There was one joke that I was able to tell he'd just made up on the spot from the way he chuckled at it, then after a minute he said, "I just made that up and it made me laugh, that makes me happy," and I was like, "I could tell that!" hehe. I felt special. Let's see, he joked about DC and the scary ass traffic patterns (so true) and how "The only one more scared than me is my ****in' GPS!" haha. A few other things that stand out right now... women objectifying men sexually by keeping a "box of severed dicks", how men can't go in groups into sex shops and laugh and high five their friends (lol), the word "problematic" (and how it sounds like a board game from the '50s), how they need to update the game "Operation" and add stuff like the bill (but you can't ever get it out, haha), some of the celebrity sex scandals and the "Me too" movement, phobias (and how they don't exist), murder scenes and DNA, waiters with pepper grinders (and how they're implying that the chef, who went to college, is wrong...lmao, "Between you and me, this could use a little pepper"), something about Kentucky where he grew up (and he's like, "I wouldn't feel too high and mighty...VIRGINIA" *serious look*...that killed me). For his ending bit he was imitating drunks and their different styles of puking, which I thought was going to totally gross me out, but it actually cracked me up, and then at the very end he was imitating the noise "Charlie the cat" (his cat) makes...and I can't even think about it without still laughing...it was like "wokita, wokita, wokita" LMAO. I was still cracking up late into the night, and then immediately when I woke up the next day when I thought about it. Amy was dying, too. He also did an amazing slow-mo run impression like, "Noooooo, get him off the beeeeeeed!" and then imitated swatting him off the bed at the last second bahaha. I was laughing SO hard I was actually worried he was gonna make ME puke for a minute. I haven't laughed that hard in aaaaages. Wow.

His set flew by. I guess it was about an hour, but it felt like 15 minutes. I laughed pretty much throughout, and a couple bits made me cheer/clap, too. When he was about to leave the stage, he said he'd be hanging out by the merch and to come up and say hi. I watched him as he ran down off the stage and then made his way through the crowd, running right past us, to go up to the front of the ADH. That was cool. Our waiter had dropped off the bill but never stopped by to get our payment, annoyingly, so Amy and I went and found the person who was at the register to pay. I guess we weren't the only ones who this happened to either, because we did that and someone else came up and did the same thing. It was taking the chick forever to take the bill after Amy signed it and I was feeling all anxious cause I wanted to go talk to Hal, haha. FINALLY she took it and then we made our way over.

There was a bit of a gathering around Hal, so I scouted out a place right near him to patiently wait my turn. Pretty soon after I got there, a guy was looking around for someone to snap a group photo with them and Hal, and I stepped right up and offered to do that. So that was kinda my first direct interaction with Hal. Twas fun. He'd looked at me right when I walked up, but I hadn't made any moves to approach him because I wanted to wait 'til the coast was a bit clearer. He looked at me again when that group left, but I hung back until the next group made their rounds with him. I asked Amy if she could hold my QAF book (that I wanted Hal to sign) for me and also manage getting some photos of us meeting, and she agreed. Haha, I loaded her up and she was so kind to me. I'd made her promise to remind me to give Hal the letter I'd written earlier in the night, too, in case I was too nervous/excited and forgot.

So finally the crowd had really cleared out and there was a perfect opening for me to make my approach. Hal smiled at me and I walked up and introduced myself as "Zelda". (At the very end of his HSRPM post show earlier that afternoon, he'd said, "And Zelda Chick, if you're there tonight, come up and say hi!", which was SO cool, and people in the chatroom were like, "Go Zelda!" and whatnot, super exciting). He instantly "recognized" me and, without me even asking, gave me a BIG hug. Like, I cannot exaggerate when I tell you how good this dude's hugs are. Wow. It was genuine, heartfelt, and long...as if he were truly greeting an old friend. *tears up* It made me feel very loved and appreciated. He was so welcoming and warm. He shook my hand and told me how nice it was to finally meet me, and I said the same. I said, "I wrote you a letter" and handed it to him (yesssss, I remembered!) and I don't know exactly what he said, "Oh —" something ("cool" or something, prolly) and took it from me. I had the tiniest bit of nerves at that point, but I was overall very calm, along with my intense excitement. It mainly felt like a blissed out, peaceful feeling...like the realizing of a longterm dream coming to fruition and you're just like, "Hell yeah, it's finally happening". I think Hal's energy speaks a lot to that, he has a real calming affect (when he's not busy cracking you up, ha).

I said, "Can we get some pictures?" and he was like, "Yeah, of course!" and we posed and Amy took a ****load of pictures (love herrr <3), then I asked if he would sign something for me, to which he was equally enthusiastic, and didn't seem at all bothered. I got my QAF book from Amy, and I had marked the page I wanted him to sign with a post it, so while I was opening it up it occurred to me that I hadn't actually told him my real name (in person) yet, so I was like, "Oh, by the way, my real name is Chris", and he said something to acknowledge that. I got the book open and he's like, "Do you want it made out to 'Zelda' or 'Chris'?" and I started to say, "'Zelda' is fine" and then I think he confused himself, cause he was asking me how I spelled my name, and telling me that his mom was also named Chris, but she spelled it "Cris", and we were making a joke about how she just cut out the "h", lol, and then he kinda looked at me and I realized he'd forgotten what I said I wanted so I just casually said, "'Zelda''s fine" again. It feels like "our thing", so I was excited he asked. I'm not sure if he got confused about where to sign or if he just wanted to look at what he was signing, but he turned the page over and LOL it's a big photo of Gale, and the page is all about Brian Kinney. I chuckled and then was like, "No, that's Brian" or something, and then indicated where I wanted him to sign and he did. Afterwards he stepped back and just looked at the photo for a second and was like, "Oh, awesome." I had a feeling he'd never actually seen that photo before, which was cool! I was trying to be original, hehe. I'd also handed him my Sharpie to sign with, cause I wanted to get it back and then have a marker that Hal had used (I did this in the past when meeting LH, too), and I think I kinda confused him again cause he had his own set of Sharpies and he was looking for the cap, then realized he had to hand it back to me... LOL.

Other than that, it all felt VERY smooth. Amy was standing next to me at this point and Hal looked at her, so I introduced her and he shook her hand and exchanged pleasantries. Then he started talking a little bit about his show, and how he had three hours' worth of material that he had to work down into one, and made some sort of joke about how he was "just trying to cram jokes in," and then I said, "Like a ...joke-amatic?" (which was a play off of one of his jokes from the set) and he chuckled. I WAS SO PROUD. Hehe. He was saying, "I felt like this was the first show where this really clicked, it was all new material" and I was saying it was so cool that we were there to experience it. I looked at Amy and was like, "Oh, do you want a picture?" and she was kinda like "Umm..." and I could tell she wasn't too worried about getting one, but Hal was like, "Yeah!" and then this awesome dude behind us was like, "Would you like someone to get one of all of you?" and I was like ! "Yes, please, that would be great!" so he took my phone and got one of all of us... which was another thing I had been visualizing, a group photo, but didn't want to directly ask for!!! YAY!! I actually felt some nerves when we were taking this picture for whatever reason, and felt like my face was quivering a bit (though the photo turned out AMAZING and you can't tell). At a certain point I said to Hal, "I'm wearing my "RAGE" shirt, by the way" or something and he said, "Yeah, I noticed that!" and chuckled. After the photo, I thanked Hal again and he was like, "Of course!" I thanked the dude warmly when he handed my phone back, then I felt we should get out of the way and let other people have their turn. So I turned to thank Hal, acting like we were gonna head out. Before he said bye, he very genuinely shook my hand again and said how happy he was that I'd come out and how great it was to finally meet me, and he gave me another AMAZING hug. <3 My heart was so warm. I could just FEEL how much he meant it. It was incredible.

I told Amy I wanted to hit the bathroom and she sent me all the photos she'd taken while I peed. She was like, "Oh, did you give him the letter?!" and I was like, "Yes! I actually remembered!" and she was like, "Yay! I'm so proud." I was SO grateful she'd reminded me. She sadly told me, "I didn't get a pic of the hug, though, I was fumbling with my phone." I told her it was okay. When we came out, Hal was standing by himself for a second, so I looked at him as we passed and said, "Bye, Hal!" and gave him a warm smile. He smiled and nodded and said, "Alright, bye, thanks, Chris! Bye, Amy!" We walked outside (after Amy got assaulted by the wind while trying to open the door LOL, she was like, "Ahh, Jesus!!" hahaha). When we got outside we traded a look and I was like, "Hold on, happy hug!" and we hugged and I fangirl screamed a little bit before we crossed the street to go back to the garage, haha. SUCCESS!!!

We joked about how my car was in the spot numbered 6, which, Amy stated, "is half of 69", which was a little NSP joke. Hehe. The drive home was a little crazy at first, cause this one traffic circle on the way out of Arlington had an exit blocked off, so I accidentally ended up going over the bridge into DC! If I had been by myself, I would've been SO nervous. I've never driven in DC (and had never PLANNED on it...), but we were both cracking up so it was fine. We ended up staring the Washington Monument right in the face, and some other iconic building that we couldn't think of the name of (for shame) to the right of us, so Amy was just like, "And that thing!" and I was like, "Oh yeah! That thing." Haha. It wasn't too bad, though, I just had to make a couple of turns to get back to George Washington Parkway. The GPS was taking a minute to catch up, though. Then I joked about how Hal's bit about driving in DC had come true! (He said something about the NRA secretly pointing guns at people driving to mess up their GPS while they laughed evilly). We were laughing our asses off and I was SO hyper from the high of the hilarious show and from meeting Hal. The rest of the drive was pretty dang smooth. I was kinda beat at the same time from laughing so hard, but we were nowhere NEAR as exhausted as we'd been after the concert we'd gone to together. Thank goodness.

I got everything I wanted and THEN some!!! I felt so special that Hal just up and hugged me, without me requesting it. Him saying it was nice to finally meet ME felt like, "Whaaaat?!" and he was so genuine, he truly meant it. The man has AMAZING vibes, like he has to be one of the happiest, chillest people I've ever met. He's very grateful for what he does, and for his fans, and as one of them myself, that's just a spectacular feeling. I could still smell his cologne during the whole drive home, haha.

I was in such a blissed out, Cloud 9 state the rest of the night, and through the next day, and I still am a bit, two days later. I could tell laughing so much really triggered whatever it is that makes you start laughing way more easily, because I'm still laughing more, and more openly even two days later. It feels fantastic. And I still feel the genuine warmth from Hal. I posted a photo of us and a happy little thank you note to him on Twitter, and within SECONDS he'd not only liked it, but retweeted it with the caption, "*Beams*". I totally believed it, too. Wow, he is nice when we talk during his post shows, but it was on a whole other level in person. It's just so cool that I first found him in high school on "I Love the '80s", then years later I'm inspired to watch QAF because of him, and I finally get to actually meet him. Wowza. It really was one of the greatest nights of my life, a life goal accomplished, and a dream come true. So, so grateful.

Oh, and the episode of QAF that I watched later that night... the first scene that Hal was in, Michael starts out by yelling, "YOU ****ED A MURDERER?!" Lmao. I love QAF even more now, and it feels even MORE special to me. I didn't even think that was possible. *melts*

Giotto

I'm so happy for you that you had such a great experiance with him

your report sounds soo fangirly and happy

and he seems to be very nice to his fans and obviously a big hugger

thanks for giving us the chance to be part of your experiance with your report

daggerrose

Whooooooooa!! That sounds like so much fun, I am happy you had a good time and got to meet Hal

He sounds so nice and genuine and funny!!

I felt like I was there with your detailed description haha!!

Giotto

She has an absolut talemnt to make us feel that way

I totaly can see them

I'm Brian Kinney, FFS!

Thanks guys!! It's so great to be able to share it with you. I will post some pictures in here soon, but I don't want to bump the review too far down for now, in case anyone else wants to read it. I just had to jump in and post this, cause the love just keeps going. This is a comment I left on a video he randomly uploaded last night (late) on YT:

Giotto

isn't that great

I'm Brian Kinney, FFS!

*If anyone still wants to read the full recap, scroll down a few posts.

Here are a few pics: